With the election coming up, it’s sad to think of how far the climate change call has fallen in the past two years – as the climate has reached its tipping point. Were the disastrous storms not enough? The floods, the deadly heat waves, the hurricanes – those are harbingers of what will become normal.

No, sadly, it was not. And the public’s appetite for dealing with climate change has dropped. This New York Times article looks at how people need to change in order to then deal with global warming.

“It requires a shift in our values to reflect what scientists have been telling us for years,” he added. “The certainty of climate change must shift from that of being a ‘scientific fact’ to that of being a ‘social fact.’ ”

How do you help make it social fact? Go to the polls Tuesday and vote – and make sure climate change is an important issue in your mind when you choose a candidate.

The New Yorker’s lengthy expose (linked by Terry on Monday) is a fascinating account into the Senate’s failure to pass a climate change bill this session. By the end of the article, the blame pie can be equally shared among the politicians, but what the article really shows is how hands-off the Obama administration is in all of this.

From love of offshore drilling to a lack of staffing in environmental adviser Carol Browner’s office, President Obama abandoned his campaign rhetoric that climate change was THE top priority. It’s priority fell behind many other reforms such as finance and health-care.

But it’s not just the lack of support from the White House that killed the bill – the administration also had a lack of communication with Sens. Kerry, Graham and Lieberman and was often working against them.

This (announcing offshore drilling was open) was the third time that the White House had blundered. In February, the President’s budget proposal included $54.5 billion in new nuclear loan guarantees. Graham was also trying to use the promise of more loan guarantees to lure Republicans to the bill, but now the White House had simply handed the money over. Later that month, a group of eight moderate Democrats sent the E.P.A. a letter asking the agency to slow down its plans to regulate carbon, and the agency promised to delay any implementation until 2011. Again, that was a promise Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman wanted to negotiate with their colleagues. Obama had served the dessert before the children even promised to eat their spinach. Graham was the only Republican negotiating on the climate bill, and now he had virtually nothing left to take to his Republican colleagues.

Later, the White House is accused of linking Sen. Graham to a “gas tax,” which ended up just about killing the deal since the Republican was horrified by the backstabbing. Also not to be left out of the blame pie are party leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell (pushed the just say ” no” policy to all Democrats) and Sen. Harry Reid (who in his own interest tried to push a nonexistent immigration bill ahead of climate change).

In the end, however, while the lack of passing a bill hurts, this bill (which had been picked over by big oil, big business and other utility companies) might have been somewhat toothless if it was passed.